Juan Manuel Santos

Juan Manuel Santos Calderón ([ˈxwam maˈnwel ˈsantos kaldeˈɾon]; born 10 August 1951) is a Colombian politician who was the President of Colombia from 2010 to 2018. He was the recipient of the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize.

An economist by training and a journalist by trade, Santos is a member of the wealthy and influential Santos family, who from 1913 to 2007 were the majority shareholders of El Tiempo, Colombia's newspaper of record.

In 1991, Santos was appointed by President César Gaviria Trujillo as Colombia's first Minister of Foreign Trade. In 2000, he was appointed by President Andrés Pastrana Arango as the 64th Minister of Finance and Public Credit.

Santos rose to prominence during the administration of President Álvaro Uribe Vélez, who was elected in 2002. In 2005, Santos co-founded and led the Social Party of National Unity (Party of the U), a liberal-conservative party coalition that backed the policies of President Uribe, successfully supporting his attempt to seek a constitutional reform to be able to run for a second term. In 2006, after Uribe's re-election, when the Party of the U won a majority of seats in the two chambers of Congress, Santos was appointed as Minister of National Defence, and continued defending the security policies of President Uribe, taking a strong and forceful stance against FARC and the other guerrilla groups operating in Colombia. His time at the Ministry of Defense was tarnished by the "False positives" scandal, the executions of thousands of civilians that the army passed off as guerrillas killed in combat.

In 2010, Santos won the presidential election as the protégé of Uribe. Some months later, Uribe became his strongest opponent, and also founded three years later the opposition party Democratic Center. This rivalry led to Santos' unpopularity and a near-defeat during the 2014 Colombian presidential election against Uribe's protégé Óscar Iván Zuluaga.